Sigsbee: Day Five: Oysters

Pretty quick update about yesterday. The crew stayed at the same campsite last night, which means no sailing during the day. Instead, we toured the Horn Point Marine Lab. Specifically, we learned about their oyster restoration project.

Touring the lab.

We learned about the entire life cycle of oysters—from larvae to fully grown—and how beneficial to the environment of the Chesepeake they are.

A few other facts we learned:

•Oysters can change gender.

•The Marine Lab distributed 1.78 billion spat into the Chesepeake last year, their largest amount ever.

•The more movement oysters go through, the harder their shells get, so scientists at the lab hang oysters in baskets that get jostled by the waves.

•A bucket of larvae can cost hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars—and would contain millions of larvae.

•They have an eyespot and a foot that looks like a tongue.

•They can only stick to something once—so if they miss an oyster bar, they can get buried in sand and suffocate.

•Each oyster can spawn millions more, though very few survive.

•Oysters eat plankton, phytopkankton, fats, and algae.

In exchange for the cool information on oysters and letting us camp at Horn Point for two nights, we put in a little elbow grease and helped them clean oysters and oyster tanks. I was working with Port Watch, so most of the pictures today are of them. Hoping to get more of The six crew members in Starboard Watch!

Cleaning, cleaning , cleaning

Back at camp, the evening was busy with showers (first proper ones in five days!) and a bit more laundry. We ended the night with tie dying some bandannas—which I didn't get a picture of, but each student has their bandanna to as a keepsake, dyed in Sigsbee colors (blue and white).

Now we're back on the boat and headed for our next destination, which is our longest transit of the trip: fully seven hours under sail. Watches are busy keeping the ship running or working on science projects as I type.